Who had thse on their list for Santa?

Is there anyone in the U.S. – heck – is there anyone on the world that hasn’t seen the holiday comedy A Christmas Story at least once? Based on the essays of noted humorist Jean Shepherd (who also services as the movie’s narrator, it seems to be on a perpetual loop during December at all kinds of cable & streaming services.

But we bet there are still a few things about this perennial classic you may not know

The real inspiration for that leg lamp (“It’s a major award!”) was an old ad for Nehi soda pop (also a favorite of Radar O’Reilly on M*A*S*H). For years, the soda featured a woman’s gams next to their bottle of pop (“knee-high,” get it?). Jean Shepherd remembered those ads vividly and a pop culture icon was born.

Jack Nicholson nearly played Ralphie’s Old Man. Jack was sent the script as he was director Bob Clark’s first choice. Nicholson liked what he read and agreed to do the film, but his asking price would have single-handedly doubled the movie’s budget, so the producers took a pass and the part went to Darren McGaven. Don’t feel bad for Jack. He was also offered a part in Terms of Endearment at the same time and that part snagged him his second Oscar. Nice, but no leg lamp, am I right?

Ralphie helped kick off the MCU. As Peter Billingsley grew up, acting parts became scarcer, so he channeled his efforts behind the scenes and became an established Hollywood producer. And one of the films he executive produced was Iron Man, the very first entry in what became known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. If you look closely, he also appears as one of the scientists at Tony Stark’s company (a role he reprised in Spiderman: Far From Home.)

Author Shepherd used his own middle name in the film. Jean’s middle name is Parker, so he used that as the family name in the film because the story is based on his memories of his own family.

Melinda Dillon’s reaction in the restaurant is not acting – it’s genuine. Playing Ralphie’s mother, Dillon was deliberately given a wrong script for that scene because the director wanted to see what her unrehearsed reaction would be when she saw the duck served at the table with its head attached. Her genuine reaction is what you see in the finished film.

There really was a “Little Orphan Annie” decoder. Born in the funny papers, Annie was also an early radio star, just like it’s shown in the movie. However, the secret messages her fans could decipher with that secret radio giveaway were never insipid sales plugs for Ovaltine.

Peter Billingsley also appeared in another holiday classic. Next time you watch Elf with Will Ferrell, take a good look at Ming Ming, the lead toymaker – that’s Ralphie himself – Peter Billingsley all grown up.

No tongues were harmed during the filming of A Christmas Story. That famous flagpole scene was shot using concealed suction tubes to make it appear that Ralphie’s friend had his tongue stuck to the frozen flagpole.

A new study, conducted by researchers in Denmark and Australia, indicates that walking may be the best way to prevent dementia. Is there a catch? Well, a slight one. According to the study, you need to walk 9,800 steps daily to gain this benefit.

So, set your step counters and start walking!

By now, you know that the last of the rock pioneers, Jerry Lee Lewis passed away on Friday, October 28, 2022. He was 87 years old and, somewhat like Keith Richards, it almost defies belief that he outlasted virtually all of his contemporaries.

Born & raised in Farraday, Louisiana, Lewis absorbed a wide variety of musical styles, both black and white. When Elvis hit it big, Lewis packed up and headed to Memphis, landing at the doorstep of Sam Phillips’ Sun Records. Phillips signed the young man and almost immediately had another budding superstar. His second and third releases on Sun, “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On” and “Great Balls of Fire” raced to the top of the charts, followed by other successful rockers like “Breathless” and “High School Confidential.”

What really earned Jerry Lee his place in rock history were his live appearances – wild and frequently bordering on totally out of control. He and Little Richard established a style of performing that came to influence countless performers from Pete Townsend to Bruce Springsteen and beyond.

Lewis’ career hit a major speed bump in 1958 when it was revealed that he had married his 13-year-old second cousin, Myra Brown. Making matters even worse, it seems he hadn’t really divorced his previous wife before tying the knot with young Myra. (Despite the scandal, the couple’s marriage lasted more than a decade.)

Immediately blacklisted from rock, Lewis spent the next decade slowly rebuilding his career as a country singer, finally achieving even greater success in that genre. However, his rampaging stage shows still featured healthy doses of the rock & roll he loved, earning him the nickname, “The Killer.” His personal life was often tumultuous, filled with family tragedies, drug & alcohol excess and even violence, like the time he shot his bass player in the chest with a .357 Magnum. Fortunately, his bass player lived and chose not to file felony charges.

Lewis was among the first group of musicians inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame. Curiously, he wasn’t inducted into the Country Hall of Fame until just a few weeks before his death.

Who could have guessed that a cute little Broadway show designed to appeal to nostalgic Baby Boomers and their slightly older siblings would go on the become such a multi-generational cultural touchstone? But Grease did just that – largely because of a movie version that shrewdly soft-pedaled the 50’s and instead substituted a lot more of the 70’s.

The blockbuster film jettisoned several of the original Broadway show’s tunes and inserted 4, count ‘em, 4 modern pop tunes (Olivia Newton-John’s “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” John Travolta’s “Sandy,” the duo’s “You’re the One That I Want” and Frankie Valli’s title tune, written by Barry Gibb).

Looking at the original show’s tunes, 3 of them were clearly “homages” (a polite way of saying “rip-offs”) of some authentic tunes from the actual age of grease. Here are those tunes and the original hits that inspired them.

“Freddy, My Love” – inspired by “Eddie, My Love”: The song’s title gives away its inspiration. The original is a doo-wop classic from 1956 that originally charted for the group, the Teen Queens. The original song was written by Maxwell Davis, Aaron Collins, Jr. and Sam Ling. Davis played sax on the original record. Collins was brother to the two sisters who made up the Teen Queens and “Sam Ling” was a pseudonym for Saul Bihari, the man who owned the RPM record label that released the record.

The song reached the top 20 for the Teen Queens as well as for the Chordettes and the Fontaine Sisters all in 1956.

“We Go Together” – inspired by “Who Put the Bomp (In the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp)”: This up-tempo ditty was sung twice in the original Broadway show to close both the first and second acts. In the movie, it’s heard only once as the film’s finale. Its tribute to dozens of classic doo-wop nonsense words has its roots in a novelty record written and sung by one of rock’s great early composers, Barry Mann. Mann usually wrote songs in collaboration with his wife Cynthia Weil. But for this record, he co-wrote it with Gerry Goffin (who usually was writing songs with his then-wife Carole King, maybe you’ve heard of her?).

For whatever reason, Mann chose to sing this one himself rather than giving it to an established singer. It reached #7 on Billboards Hot 100, making it one of the most successful novelty records of its time (1961).

“Born to Hand Jive” – inspired by “Willie & the Hand Jive”: Like “Freddy, My Love,” it’s not hard to determine where this song came from. The original, featuring “Way-Out Willie” was written and recorded by r&b great, Johnny Otis in 1958. His version reached as high as #8 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and inspired teenagers from coast-to-coast to do their own version of the Hand Jive at dances and sock hops for many years after. The song was covered by Eric Clapton in 1974 and again charted on Billboard, this time getting to #24. The “tribute” (another polite word for “rip-off”) of the song in Grease really doesn’t mess with the essentials.

If you ever see the stage show, it will probably now include some of the songs written just for the movie, but it may also include two wonderful tunes that never got the attention they deserved in the film. The first is “Magic Changes,” a wonderful little hymn to the simplicity of sweet early rock & roll. In the stage show, it’s sung fairly early by one of the Burger Palace Boys as a way of demonstrating how he’s learning the guitar. In the movie, it’s sung by Johnny Casino at the school dance, but it’s heard mainly in the background as the film’s major characters interact at the dance.

The other song is “Alone at the Drive-In Movie.” This is a hilarious song about the thwarted lust Danny feels when Sandy dumps him at the drive-in. The song takes the form of a 1950’s teen weeper. In the movie version, it’s replaced by the ultra-saccharine, “Sandy.”  In the movie, it’s only heard as instrumental background music.

Okay, what are they putting in that V-8?

Think you may have some valuable old stuff in the attic or garage & now is the time to sell?

That may be as toys & other stuff from our childhood can bring big bucks. But before you start maxing out the credit cards in anticipation of the untold riches your old stuff will bring you, here are few things you should do first!

Visit eBay – Or a similar auction site. Don’t simply looking to see if your item(s) are listed and what sellers might be asking. Instead, check that little box that will display sold items. That way you can see if there are actually buyers for that item and what they’re currently paying.

Is it selling for $200 or less? – Then experts say you’re probably best off listing it on that auction site. If you’ve never sold anything on an auction site before, most have tutorials that will guide you through the process.

Is it selling for more than $500? – Then experts say you’re better off bringing in a professional appraiser to give you a valid estimate on the item or consigning the item to an auction house that specializes in whatever it is you’re selling. Those auctioneers have already cultivated an audience of people who want whatever you’re selling and used to paying what it’s worth.

Keep in mind that appraisers charge for their services and auction houses will take a healthy percentage of the final sale price.

That said, happy hunting & good luck!

With rare exception, most rock bands of the 1960s came out of nowhere, burned brightly for a year or two, and then faded away. The Turtles fit the first two parts of that formula, but they have stubbornly refused to fade away.

The band was born in the surf music craze of the early 1960s. A bunch of students at Westchester High in Los Angeles put together a little combo in 1963 that went by the name of the Crossfires. Unlike most high school rock bands, they actually continued to play together even after their members moved on to college.

By 1965, folk rock had definitely replaced surf music, so taking a page from the Byrds, the band renamed itself, the Tyrtles. The problem was most people had trouble pronouncing that name correctly, so the band settled on the conventional spelling, and the Turtles were on their way.

They signed with the tiny White Whale Records and found their first success (like the Byrds) in covering a Bob Dylan tune, “It Ain’t Me Babe.” Between 1965 and 1969, they placed 9 singles in the Top 40, with 5 reaching the Top 10. Their biggest hit was their only #1, “Happy Together,” and it became their signature tune.

Despite all their achievements on the singles charts, the band could not sell albums. Only the LP containing the aforementioned “Happy Together” and their first Greatest Hits package even charted. By 1969, the band was fighting with their record label and fighting with each other, so they packed it in.

But that was not the last we would hear of the band. The group's two singers, Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, stayed together and, along with Turtles’ bass player, Jim Pons, joined Frank Zappa, resulting in the most commercially successful version of the Mothers of Invention. In fact, the Mothers’ live act during that time would culminate with the band actually playing “Happy Together,” always bringing down the house!

Kaylan & Volman became better known as Flo & Eddie. They hosted several nationally syndicated radio shows and found steady work as session players (singing back up on Bruce Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart” and several of Alice Cooper’s tracks, among others). Along the way, the duo also bought the rights to the Turtles' original recordings and has done an excellent job of keeping the band’s catalog in print.

Starting in 2010, Flo & Eddie formed a new version of the Turtles and took to touring the oldies circuit. Unfortunately, Kaylan has passed away, but Volman continues with well-known session singer Ron Dante (“Sugar, Sugar,” “Traces,” “Leader of the Laundermat”) stepping in to keep the Turtles performing into their 7^th decade.

New research has shown that what’s good for your heart may also be good for warding off dementia or cognitive decline. Studies are showing that hypertension and high blood pressure seem to be associated with decline in our mental facilities.

So, stay sharp; keep your blood pressure under control.